American Signatures

American Signatures

Ballets by Jerome Robbins, Pam Tanowitz, Lar Lubovitch and Jessica Lang

1 Intermission

Jerome Robbins is considered one of the most important ballet makers of the 20th century and his unmistakeable style has had a decisive influence on American dance. Interplay, his second choreographic work, premiered in 1945 in New York, provides a rousing opening to the four-part programme American Signatures that combines dance icons with current choreographic voices.

Performed to Morton Gould’s jazzy score, Interplay presents precisely what its title suggests: as if in a playground, the dancers meet, full of fun, but also competing with each other in Robbins’ choreography, that employs jazz elements to enrich the classical ballet vocabulary and with which the theatre maker and dance artist created one of the works that had a formative influence on his aesthetic.

The central section is made up of two pas de deux: Pam Tanowitz’s Dispatch Duet, originally created by the New York-based choreographer with the Royal Ballet London, manipulates formal, classical dance steps in an unfamiliar and amusing way to music by the American composer Ted Hearne that – mirroring Tanowitz’s choreographic language – twists musical ideas and conventions and filters them through his own individual musical language. Lar Lubovitch’s Each In Their Own Time is a recent work by one of America’s most versatile and popular choreographers. Created during the Covid pandemic for two soloists of New York City Ballet, the duet creates an intimate, interiorised world – choreographed with emotional depth and architectural clarity to piano works by Johannes Brahms that are performed by an onstage pianist.

Let Me Mingle Tears With Thee is Jessica Lang’s visual and choreographic exploration of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s famous setting of the Stabat mater. The resident choreographer at Pacific Northwest Ballet develops a poignant movement language, sometimes soft and fluid, sometimes energetic and impulsive, with which her dancers bring this sacred music to life.

Program and cast

Interplay

Choreography: Jerome Robbins

Music: Morton Gould

Costume design: Saint Loquasto

Lighting design: Ronald Bates

Rehearsal: Joaquin De Luz

Musical direction: Ben Glassberg

Piano: John Curreli

Dispatch Duet

Choreography: Pam Tanowitz

Music: Ted Hearne

Costume design: Reid Barthelme

Costume design: Harriet Jung

Lighting design: Simon Bennison

Rehearsal: Deirdre Chapman

Musical direction: Ben Glassberg

Each In His Own Time

Choreography, costumes and lighting: Lar Lubovitch

Music: Johannes Brahms

Rehearsal: Katarzyna Skarpetowska

Piano: Shino Takizawa

Let Me Mingle Tears With Thee

Choreography: Jessica Lang

Music: John Baptist Pergolesi

Set design: Jessica Lang

Set design: Carolyn Wong

Costume design: Jillian Lewis

Lighting design: Carolyn Wong

Musical direction: Ben Glassberg

soprano: Anita Götz

All: Jasmin White